TheBibleMelts Two - ACIDIC BOOGALOO

[TheBibleMelts]

VOTE THEBIBLEMELTS - KEEP ON MELTING

what is it

i am jonathan "xemo" thebiblemelts, hostvote of the current term - and ageless mummified creature who's had a history with this server as both a player and administrator for over a decade running. i can typically be found lurking in the nightmares of players and administrators alike for my vile shitposting, or in my laboratory concocting fun new ways to torment people with clowns and other tools that i am afforded from my position.



what does it want

i want to continue my work with trimming down our rules, modernizing our precedents and discarding irrelevant bloat from both the main rules page and beyond - speaking of bloat, i also intend to keep up with regular admin inactivity sweeps.

additionally, a big goal has been to promote as much unity of the /tg/station community as i can, both with the coding team through open communication and collaboration, and continue discouraging the manner of brainworms that causes some toxic tribalism to develop in both players and admins alike. we should all be on team spaceman.


what has it done

starting with something mentioned above, i have worked to try and make our rules more concise, easier to read and use, and less intimidating to follow. here's the size of our first rules page before my term began.

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and here's where we're at now

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what, you want more detail than a copy pasted character counter from mspaint? fine.

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*reworded several rules altogether to get rid of extra fluff while still maintaining the SOVL spirit of the rule.

* rule 12 was cut altogether and rolled into rule 3, which saw a facelift of its own.

* rule 4 was made into the catch-all "antagonists" rule which previously had its precedents and wording scattered between several other rules.

* rule 5 was adapted from a "don't commit suicide as a vital role" to something that both encouraged a higher quality of play from Head of Staff roles, and granted them increased power to do so with a degree of metaprotection in running their departments.

* escalation policy was rewritten from a flowchart that ended up being abused in ways the original writer hadn't desired into something less gameable overall.

* pruned, removed, or baked in over a dozen old headmin rulings into the main rules while still keeping rulesbloat down.

* workshopped a new Space Law that hasn't seen a good updating in nearly 10 years, and codified that keeping in line with it is what grants security their metaprotections.

* along with those more 'visible' actions, i have also been constantly working in other capacities to ensure that the "human resources" oriented part of headminning doesn't go by the wayside, and encourage my team to treat things with levity and humor where appropriate, and not lose themselves in the burnout.

what will it do

continue trimming the rules, continue adapting/meshing our IC and OOC policies where possible (ex. the space law change), keep policy threads and appeal forums as clean as i can, and when necessary, investigate and make sure that if a harsh punishment is required on certain members of the community (deadminning admins, QC'ing players) for the health of /tg/station at large, due respect and time are put into the process to ensure that it is the correct move. i mention this last part mostly because it feels like my term has had a lot of clean-up in that regard, which, while extremely difficult, has resulted in a less caustic environment for our players overall. thanks for reading.

late edit: oh i also really dug using policybus to feel out changes that i thought would impact the community at large, and enjoyed incorporating the ideas and opinions of the people who participated into them. i'd like to use it more as a way to involve the community as a whole in things.

even later edit: i'm also going to create a Head of Appeals role and duct tape timberpoes to it for as long as his ember burns.




in summary



credit to my problematic homeslice chappy for the funny greenman flag displayed above

[TheBibleMelts]

hold on are we still posting scrubby activity pages or was that a fad

either way

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[Hulkamania]

Do you think you will continue the same pace of rules changes and updates moving forward into a second term, or will they be different (either more or less)

[TheBibleMelts]

Do you think you will continue the same pace of rules changes and updates moving forward into a second term, or will they be different (either more or less)

i'd like to. i didn't touch the MRP rules at all this term because they'd just been made and i wanted to give them time to breathe, but i'd be pretty happy to give those a good spin in the tumbler for some polish in this coming one.

ideally for the main rules, i'd like to straight up cut several of them - rule 7(line toeing=line breaking) should just be a rule 1 precedent, rule 2(the metagame rule) could use a facelift (and i already have a draft written for it that got put on the shelf for the space law rewrite), and i'd like the chance to go through another round of "how many headmin rulings can i remove by simmering them into the existing rules page" the same as I did with the rule 1 changes. additionally, as much as i love quoting rule 10, it isn't really a rule, and it almost feels like it could go into a redone rule 6(admin rulings are final), since if we ever have to quote it, it's usually to invoke that we're saying an issue was likely the result of it anyway.

[conrad]

Hey tbm,

Got some questions for you:

Disclaimer: Questions that pertain to admin stuff I'm gonna try to not leak anything from bus by waves hands vagueposting, but I feel they're good to ask anyway based on previous interactions. Mods, feel free to delete my post, but do tell me where I leaked something if I did.

- During your rules changes, I felt that there was a lot of this underlying feeling of "now there's more rules", and a general frustration on your head admin team's part to convince players that the rule itself didn't change, just its wording. Is this feeling I had genuine? If so, what plans do you have to improve on the head admin team's PR?

- During some discussions, particularly a couple of the more recent ones, personally I felt like the talk was "this TBM idea has problems and we need to change his mind" moreso than "this TBM idea has potential, let's work together on it". In the end I don't think I was dissatisfied with any of the rules changes; I took a major break, but when coming back and adminning I didn't find it difficult to bwoink people, and nobody yelled at me which is good. Have you felt that you were being piled on by admins trying to change your mind, or did you feel that the process was indeed a workshop? I ask because I am sure that, if you win, we're gonna have more of those.

- We were promised in your term more details of the sybil metacord incident. We got what we got, and then it went to radio silence. Some information of how your term conducted the investigation ended up coming up from members of that metacord sharing it on the tg discord. I don't think the players got anything. Why the radio silence? Is that posture something we should expect if you be elected again, or do you plan on more transparency?

I really liked working with you as head admin. Nobody's perfect, so I thought to ask about a few things that stood out. Thanks and good luck!

[TheBibleMelts]

Hey tbm,

Got some questions for you:

Disclaimer: Questions that pertain to admin stuff I'm gonna try to not leak anything from bus by waves hands vagueposting, but I feel they're good to ask anyway based on previous interactions. Mods, feel free to delete my post, but do tell me where I leaked something if I did.

- During your rules changes, I felt that there was a lot of this underlying feeling of "now there's more rules", and a general frustration on your head admin team's part to convince players that the rule itself didn't change, just its wording. Is this feeling I had genuine? If so, what plans do you have to improve on the head admin team's PR?

one of the most amusing parts of trimming down the rules were the swathes of people who would read what changed and then begin throwing a fit about the specific part of the rule that hadn't been changed, as if we were sneaking it in. there's some overlap between frustration and amusement at times, but that's pretty par for the course when it comes to ss13 in general.

- During some discussions, particularly a couple of the more recent ones, personally I felt like the talk was "this TBM idea has problems and we need to change his mind" moreso than "this TBM idea has potential, let's work together on it". In the end I don't think I was dissatisfied with any of the rules changes; I took a major break, but when coming back and adminning I didn't find it difficult to bwoink people, and nobody yelled at me which is good. Have you felt that you were being piled on by admins trying to change your mind, or did you feel that the process was indeed a workshop? I ask because I am sure that, if you win, we're gonna have more of those.

i pitched a lot of ideas knowing that they wouldn't all work out, but thought that bringing them up for discussion and trying to figure out why something about a certain policy/way things being done had rubbed me the wrong way would be the way to go. i personally got a lot of enrichment out of it by listening to players and admins perceptions and would often have my perception on something changed after these talks. there's no such thing as an objective reality and i am not narcissistic enough to assume that because i feel passionately about something, it's the only way to go. for example, i still think it would be worth giving something like my Mergening proposal a shot, but absolutely recognize other peoples opinions on it as being just as valid as my own.

- We were promised in your term more details of the sybil metacord incident. We got what we got, and then it went to radio silence. Some information of how your term conducted the investigation ended up coming up from members of that metacord sharing it on the tg discord. I don't think the players got anything. Why the radio silence? Is that posture something we should expect if you be elected again, or do you plan on more transparency?

this was a pretty rough one overall. we were essentially given the tools to make these bans on informed evidence under the stipulation that we share as little details as possible, and that combined with the respect for peoples privacy caused a lot of cageyness about information that lead to unhappiness from genuinely concerned players, myself, and the peanut crowds who only wanted more information as Content. getting stones tossed in my direction was acceptable compared to compromising the privacy of those involved.

I really liked working with you as head admin. Nobody's perfect, so I thought to ask about a few things that stood out. Thanks and good luck!

thanks dawg, you did really well with cooking questions up for the candidates in general.

[TheBibleMelts]

added to the op because it popped into my head.

late edit: oh i also really dug using policybus to feel out changes that i thought would impact the community at large, and enjoyed incorporating the ideas and opinions of the people who participated into them. i'd like to use it more as a way to involve the community as a whole in things.

[Cheshify]

Question: What have you learned most over the course of our term, how are you going to use this info going forward?

[TheBibleMelts]

Question: What have you learned most over the course of our term, how are you going to use this info going forward?

i don't know if i really learned much specifically aside from the inner workings and management side of headminning.

i was hostvoted while i was still technically in my trial after returning, so i've lumped together a lot of my 'headmin lessons' with 'catching back up in general' lessons. i'm a little more confident in my footing and have put good effort into reintegrating with the team and community since then, so i'm a good deal more confident in my actions than i initially had been.

[TheBibleMelts]

i didn't get to use nearly as much propaganda as i wanted to in this thread so here's another piece

[TheBibleMelts]

i've added a bold new claim to my "what will it do" section

[britgrenadier1]

Late question since I already voted, but are there any standout mrp rules you’d take a crack at if you win a second term?

[TheBibleMelts]

Late question since I already voted, but are there any standout mrp rules you’d take a crack at if you win a second term?

after having watched how these rules realistically play out on MRP, and the stated desires of the playerbase on how strictly they should be enforced, i'd like to adjust and clarify across the board around that. striking a balance between rule 4, 5, and six is especially important - antagonists should feel more free to fuck around with funny gimmicks without fear of a wordless RR, and on the flipside, the crew shouldn't anticipate every antagonist to be silently gaming the Round End scenario that necessitates wordless RR's in the first place.

[TheFinalPotato]

If elected, will you promise to make a github account so we can notify you about changes that require policy updates?

[TheBibleMelts]

If elected, will you promise to make a github account so we can notify you about changes that require policy updates?

you're cutting me deep here, but if this is what it takes to get the coder vote, i will concede and create a github account.

[TheFinalPotato]

Pact is sealed